The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1887-02-10
A Lonesome Lake Vision.

Ii would be Idle to attempt any ac-
counting for the vision | saw two hours
ago when | was sitting on the piazza of
the cabin. The night had settled down,
the darkness rolling in over the eastern
hills and crowding the last of the twi-
light up over the ridge of Mount Kins-
man on the west The innumerable
sounds of forest night-life had COM
menced. The moon, little past the
full had not yet risen. 1t was dark. but
not dark, for the stars were aglow, but
there were spots of intense darkness,
one especially black close by me, where
the path to the ice-house enters the pine
forest. There is always a temptation 10
look into the blacklist place in the night
time. Whether it be that danger comes
out of the deepest concealment. or the
natural curiosity of man which expects
to discover something where all seems
impenetrable. every man. riding. walk
ing, or sitting in whatwe call the dark.
directs his eye frequently and ceriously
into the places where there is no light.
No sudden vision presented itself. bat
that black avenue entering the pine
forest was after a little full OF forms and
faces, and out of it came a swelling
murmur rising to clear enuncia'ion of
voices. How long | looked and saw
and heard have no idea. Perhaps it
was ten seconds. ten minutes. For the
time the mental vision was kaleido-
scope of all sorts of scenes and people
Scenes utterly dissimilar in their associa-
tions. people widely asunder iu all rea-
sOnable memory. The dead form OF an
Egyptian soldier, lying in the cold
moonlight of Luxor, his face set to the
skv, the gold-crowned head of a girl l
have not seen for forty years, a yenera-
BILE matron now, people | knew and
people | never knew but had seen,
voices in many languages, some that /
could understand, some that | could not
understand, all these wcre-where? In
my brain? In my mind?
''Oh, il was all imagination. is YOUR
simple explanation. If you will pardon
the ot1ensiveneSs, my friend, / viii say
your explanation is bosh. / admit that
it was what you are pleased 10 call i'm
agination-my imagination two hours
AGO, not now, for | am trying to de-
scribe an actual occurrence and not an
uncommon occurrence in my own and
in your experience, for serious consider
alton. But 10 say that the condition in
which the mind shuts away the acAal
present, and the senses cease to report
sounds or OdOrs or feelings and the
mind thinks the senses are reporting TO
it sights and voices when those senses
are in fact III a state OF paralyss-to
say that this is Imagination is no eX-
planatiOn, any more than the theory of
evolution which Omits origin, is an ex-
planatioh of material phenomena.
There is Il great deal too much Of this
kind OF explanation in the superficial
PHILOSOPHERS Of our day; the su5srtu-
ton of q new puzzle for an old one.
which triUmphautly says that explains
it at the very moment you are Won
dering how 4 sane man can resi- salts
fed with an inconciusive and wholly
unsatisfactory, because not final, ex-
panatCn.
What do you mean by imagination?
! imagined that / saw. did /? / created
the thoughts, created the supposed
faces, created the sounds, did J.? No,
l remember them. Every one Of them
was once n physical reality. And now
that | recall the scene, which You cali
the Imagination, OF two hours AGO | am
remembering a memory. Ii, as the
materialisJ theories. the original facts,
seen with eyes heard with ears, were
recorded physically in the particles of
section Of the brain, then Two hours ago
| took a score or a hundred or a thou
sand OF those records and reawanged
them in new record which | can now
read. and there WAS no physical fact to
make the new recOrd.-AeIU IOTiC Jour
nal Of Commerce.